


All In The Peppers

by inbox



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Cooking, Fallout Kink Meme, Flirting, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Kink Meme, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 20:38:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2242758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbox/pseuds/inbox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fallout Kink Meme prompt: Arcade and his boyfriend/husband/whatever cook dinner together.</p>
<p>Boone and Arcade do the dishes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All In The Peppers

“I don't cook much.”  
  
An admission, or a confession, or an excuse. It doesn't really matter, not when it's paired with a plate unceremoniously dropped in front of him, piled up with seared steak and potatoes mashed up with soured butter and a pile of cold peeled prickly pear fruit on the side.   
  
“Bon appetit,” says Arcade grandly. The steak is brown on the outside and blue in the middle, just how he likes it. He carefully cuts off the fat and eats it first. Always the best part first. No point in delaying his gratification.  
  
“Bon yourself,” says Boone. He's got his own plate, and he eats hunched over the plate with one arm curled protectively around it. There hadn't been much to go around, he said once. Not with eight kids and a farm that mostly grew dirt. Some habits were hard to break, even amongst the largesse of New Vegas with a fridge full to bursting, and his plate is scraped clean by the time Arcade gets around to breaking apart pieces of cactus fruit between his thumbs.  
  
“Well,” says Arcade after a while, picking cactus seeds from his teeth with the edge of his nail, “For a man who doesn't cook much that was excellent. I'd die happy with that as my last meal.”  
  
Boone shrugs, and if the lighting in the Lucky 38 wasn't so dreary and yellowed and impossible to see by, he'd lay money on the fact Boone's ears were turning red.  
  
“I'll clean up,” he adds. “It's about time I keep up my end of the deal and get these soft hands dirty.”  
  
Boone joins him at the sink anyway, silently wiping dry the sudsy plates that Arcade hands over, each pass of the moth-eaten dish rag radiating his disapproval at Arcade's half-assed effort.  
  
“You cook much?”  
  
“Not if I can help it,” says Arcade, dropping a bowl crusted with mashed potato into the dirty water with a splash. It floats there for a few seconds until he prods at it, the water rushing in and sending it dropping to the murky depths of the sink. “I mean I can, of course. Anything to not eat beans from a can. It's just a lot of effort to make something for myself. Or for Julie, I guess. Or Daisy.” He scrubs at the bowl and laughs, mildly embarrassed at his own confession. “Look at me, cooking for the women in my life. What a ladies man. Now  _that's_  a sad state to be in. It's been far, far too long between reasons to make morning after scrambled eggs.”  
  
This time he  _knows_  Boone's ears are burning red.  
  
“Yeah.” Beside him Boone dries the frying pan with such intensity that Arcade is sure he's trying to wipe a hole through it. “That's... yeah. Same. I guess.”  
  
“Peppers. The secret is using good peppers.” He hands over the last bowl, now (mostly) clean of mashed potato, and pulls the plug from the sink with a flourish. “Good peppers, that bighorner cheese that Judy from Far Go Trading brings to the Followers compound sometimes, plenty of spices. And good eggs. I don't cheap out on the eggs.”   
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah.” Arcade wipes his hands dry on the rag in Boone's hands, and leans against the sink. “I figure that it's a second chance to make a good impression.”  
  
“Reckon your first impression would've been enough. Knowing you, I mean.” Boone hangs up the dish cloth with unneeded precision, fiddling with it until its edges are squared away straight. By his measure Arcade reckons the flush rosying up Boone's ears crept down his neck and dipped beneath his collar, burning hot. “Sounds good. The, uh, peppers and that.”  
  
“It's all in the peppers.”  _Stop saying peppers_ , he thinks. “Why? Want the recipe?”  
  
“Nah.” Boone hands him the plates to put away. “I mean, yeah, I guess. Or you could make 'em.” He clears his throat. “If you want to. Reckon they'd be worth it.”  
  
“Now I can't tell if you're making a mockery of me or hitting on me. Or both.”   
  
“No idea,” says Boone, and if Arcade didn't know him better he could've sworn he sounded amused. “No idea at all.”


End file.
